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Building Leaders and Empowing All Employees

How the Reward can make or break the Recognition!

I used to train a lot of management workshops that asserted that the reward doesn’t mean as much as the effort taken to actually recognize an employee. As long as the reward fits the value of the effort you are recognizing, this is an assertion that normally stands up, but not always.

In the area of sales, you can often prompt rapid effort from your sales team by holding up a carrot if certain criteria are met, and if the carrot is something people want they will often over achieve just to get the reward.

It is important to note that value is in the eye of the receiver, not the giver. You as the manager might think that a weekend for two at the local motel with a cash bonus of $25 for food is a winning offer, but unless your employees agree, they are not apt to put in any extra effort.

The dollar amount doesn’t make the reward automatically valuable:

So a sales manager has been used to popping a $1000 to his team members when they meet what appear to be more than stretch goals. He told me that initially it got some people to push hard because they all seemed to have an idea of how to spend the money. But over time, he noticed either people where putting the money in savings, or paying off a bill. Since this was not too exciting, the energy to earn the bonus was losing steam and the after effect was very short lived motivation.

I asked him to consider booking a 3-day cruise from one of two ships in our local port of Long Beach, and as a Travel Agent, I would work with him to pay for the cruise, the gratuities and include any on board spending dollars but not to exceed $1000. But even though the dollar amount was the same, he should raise the bar for the goal to win. (Note, the cruise would need to be taken within the next 3 months at a date that worked best for the winner.)

Since last quarter he had no one that won the bonus, he was eager to try something new.

Well, he cut the time from 3 months to 2 months to win a cruise, and set no limit on how many could win. He also upped the sales goal 20%. Guess what happened? Yes, five employees pulled it off! And because they all took their cruise at different times, each time they returned to work the buzz started again about what a great time they had. Not only is this team eager for the next contest, they also got a needed break from work which rejuvenated them too!

Just an idea for how using the right reward can make all the difference. If you want to give it a try, email me at jhopkins@cruisesinc.comor stop by www.JimLoriTravel.com and explore the possibilities!

NOTE: Cruise Pricing varies throughout the year. For reward purposes, always set a limit for what you will pay up to and the remainder is on the employee.